WORCESTER -- Wyman-Gordon was launched in 1883 by Worcester Polytechnic Institute graduates H. Winfield Wyman and Lyman F. Gordon, who were themselves the sons of Crompton Loom Works employees. Their parents helped the two young men get contracts for their fledgling company.

The company began as a forge for crankshafts, with eight employees in a small wooden building, but grew to employ thousands in several plants around Worcester County and, eventually, around the world.

This Worcester plant, with its now empty parking area at Gold and Washington streets across from the Madison Street plant near Kelley Square, was part of an operation that became known for its fine forging skills. Those skills were eventually used to create parts for the aeronautics and automobile industries that kept the forges cranking during every war since.

Among their claims to fame: a 50,000-ton forge, so big the plant was built around it (at its North Grafton plant); that site is now designated a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark.

Its Worcester site was known for another distinction: the late Abbie Hoffman, famous 1960s radical, led pickets at the Worcester plant in 1964 for its discriminatory hiring practices (African American workers were employed only as janitors at the plant until the successful picketing campaign).

The company became known in the mid- to late 20th century for its titanium products, but the move to titanium forging, along with the acquisition of several other companies, could not compensate for the reduced military contracts after the end of the Cold War and a substantial reduction in aeronautics product demand.

When it was acquired by Precision Castparts Corp., Wyman-Gordon was in deep debt. The company, however, has retained the Wyman-Gordon name.